


Smile, the worst is yet to come

by queenofchildren



Series: The Discovery of Kindness [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Let's build a society, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-02-27 19:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2703893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofchildren/pseuds/queenofchildren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seceding from your government to start your own society is hard, and it's definitely something you can only do with the right person having your back.</p>
<p>Or: The story of how Clarke gets a horse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Decisions

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place at some point after Season 2.

_Smile, the worst is yet to come_  
 _We'll be lucky if we ever see the sun_  
 _Got nowhere to go, we could be here for a while_  
 _But the future is forgiven, so smile_  
  
 _We're trying so hard to get it all right_  
 _But only feel lonely at the end of the night_  
 _And I wanna be somewhere away from this place_  
 _Yeah, somewhere just a little closer to grace_

 

Seceding from Ark government and starting a new society is Bellamy's idea, of course, and a month ago she would have accused him of looking to start just another revolution. Now, the idea resonates with her, with the girl who has grown up in a grey coffin only to be dropped onto this vast, dangerous, beautiful planet; who has run through forests, bathed in rivers, watched plants and butterflies glow in the night. There's not a lot of occasion for that at Camp Jaha, where everyone has their place to be and their things to do, where there are curfews and restricted areas and no civilians are allowed outside the perimeter fence. On particularly gloomy days, Clarke sometimes thinks that it' not all that different from being locked up at Mount Weather, where at least the food was amazing. Then she immediately feels ungrateful, because she is only cooped up at the camp so that the guards can protect her, but that's just the thing: After all she has done, she hardly feels like she needs protection anymore. But she needs freedom, she needs to make her own decisions, and she doesn't think she can do that around here. And, increasingly, she thinks that there has to be _more_. People didn't fight and die so they could cower in the shadow of Mecha station, clinging to outdated Ark rules and flinching at every breeze and snapping twig.

Of course, there are a million reasons why it's a bad idea, and the girl she used to be can list them all – the good girl from Go-Sci, studious, polite, a rule-abider, not -breaker. But the idea has taken root in her head, and it's growing more attractive by the hour. So Clarke starts talking to the people who went from fellow condemned to friends, and finds that many of them are growing restless, too. After running wild and free, if only for a few weeks, they're finding it difficult to assimilate back into the Ark's rigid structure, its rules and fences and restricions. She starts asking people, carefully, what they think of the idea; if they'd be willing to give up safety and comfort once more for a chance at a fresh start, on their own terms this time. More than half of them say yes, enthusiastically in many cases.

All this support from the people she has already come to think of as 'her people' strengthens her resolve. But in the end, what makes the decision is a conversation she has with Raven while watching Bellamy.

He's giving a speech to a group of the 100 who wanted to sign up for guard shifts and found that only trained Ark soldiers are allowed to. Clarke isn't listening very attentively, her head still circling around the question she has been mulling over for days, but it looks like he's trying to simultaneously assure the teens that they have value even if the Ark leaders refuse to acknowledge it, and keep them from marching on Kane's quarters to revolt. He's maintaining the balance with ease, Clarke notices, but she is interrupted in her musings when Raven appears next to her and sits down on the bench where Clarke is taking a short break from medical training with her mother.

“A speech, again?“

Clarke nods, smiling at Raven's exasperated tone.

“He really loves giving those.“

To her surprise, Clarke finds herself defending him. „He's pretty good at it, though.“

Raven shoots her a look that she ignores pointedly, but instead of fighting her on it or mocking Bellamy's passion for public oration some more, the mechanic turns serious, watching silently for a moment.

“When he's in full steam, he reminds me of something I heard once: 'He could make kings or topple them.'“ She pauses, shooting another sideways glance at Clarke. “Or queens, as it were.“

Now Clarke turns her head to look at the mechanic, eyebrows raised. It's clear the other woman wants to tell her something, although the poetic phrasing is quite unlike Raven's usual flippant way of talking. Her friend explains without being asked.

“Monty told me what you're planning. That you're thinking about separating from the Ark, but you're not sure you can make it. I'm just saying, with him having your back, you can.“

Before Clarke can respond, Raven is called away by a panicked Wick, who has apparently tried to put one of his designs into practice without consulting Raven first and caused a minor explosion. Raven hurries off, and Clarke is left to ponder her words and stare at the group before her.

Bellamy's finished his monologue, and apparently, he has reached his goal: The teens are no longer angry, but instead laughing and walking off in small groups, some of them talking about formally applying to guard training. Well done, she thinks, and that's the moment she makes her decision.

He spots her and comes over, his audience now dispersed.

“Watching me, Princess? Would you like me to take my shirt off to make it more interesting?“

She doesn't have time for his teasing now, her whole mind focused on the new goal she just created for herself, because god forbid she ever just let others take charge and worry. She gets up to stand before him and looks him straight in the eyes.

“Let's do it.“

She'd laugh at his expression if she wasn't already deep in planning-mode.

“I was joking about the shirt...“

“Let's secede, or whatever the hell it is we'd be doing. Let's build a society!”

He just stares at her, blinking slowly, as he takes in her words. She's not entirely sure what she expects him to do – question her decision? Start planning and ordering her around immediately? take off his shirt anyway, because why not? - but then he flashes her a broad grin.

“You got it, Princess.”

Excitement courses through her, a heady mixture of hope and elation with just a dash of incredulousness at her own courage (or is it hybris?), and suddenly she doesn't know what to do with all the energy she is finally feeling again, so she grabs his shoulders and shakes them, her face splitting into a wide grin too. He lifts his hands to still hers but doesn't shake them off, and for a few moments they are standing motionless in the middle of Camp Jaha, hands clasped, grinning like maniacs.

It's as good a start as any to their renewed co-leadership, she thinks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a companion piece to this that tells the story from Bellamy's point of view, but with some different scenes and a slightly different focus, so watch out for that.  
> The lyrics are from Mikky Ekko's 'Smile', which is my jam for this story.


	2. The First Step

One week later, they're standing by the gates of Camp Jaha, seventy people ready to follow them outside, and Clarke fights and loses against the temptation to look back at her mother, who is standing before the ruined station with tears in her eyes. She feels a stab of melancholy, a sharp pain as her last link to the past is severed, her last chance to return to being a child again and letting someone else take care of things.

Her mother has offered her that chance again and again, promised to love and protect her and Clarke knows she would, but she still turned down the offer and watched, helplessly, as her strong, brave mother broke down in tears. Since that moment, the night after she made the decision, Clarke was constantly tempted to ask her mother to join them. In the end, she didn't. Chancellor Griffin has her own people to lead, having been formally elected by the majority of the Ark population after Councilman Kane returned from his peace mission and stepped down from office. She has to look forward, and so does Clarke.

With one last smile and nod, she tears her gaze away from the familiar face and looks instead at the man next to her. His eyes are scanning the trees, more out of habit than due to a real threat, but he seems to notice that he's being watched and looks at her, a small smile of encouragement playing around his mouth. He's not the reason she's doing this, but he is the motor behind it – the one who planted the idea in her head, the one who helped her turn it from an idea into a plan during hours of talking and scheming and preparing, the one who proposed it to their people in one of his rousing speeches. The one who reassured her when doubts snuck in the night before, and refused to let her back out. The one who will be by her side for this.

“Ready, Princess?”

She returns the smile before training her eyes on the path before them. His elbow is pressing slightly against her arm, a solid reminder that whatever happens, she won't have to do this alone. Taking a deep breath, she takes the first step through the gates, and seventy people follow.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter - I promise the next ones will be longer.


	3. The Road to Home

They've tried to prepare as much as possible, squeezing every last expendable resource out of the Ark councillors' promise to help them – clothes, blankets, weapons, tools, parachute cloth for tents, and even a small medkit that Abby and Bellamy put together. They've told their people, especially those who didn't land on earth with them, that it won't be easy, that they will be cold and hungry and exhausted and still not allowed to give up.

It turns out to be even harder than they thought. There are grumblings when the hunters don't manage to bring home enough food three days in a row and pople go to sleep hungry, when it takes them longer than expected to reach the shore, when the Luna tribe demands they move on even further and then pay them a yearly part of their food in exchange for being allowed to settle. People get dehydrated and malnourished, sick and injured and there's not always something she can do even though everyone thinks there is. And still Clarke has to stay calm and patient as she listens to their complaints, to keep a level head and make decisions that lead to even more complaining and, once, an outright riot that Bellamy barely manages to suppress with his patented mix of brute force and charisma.

More than once, Clarke is ready to despair, to give up and just run back to her mother's arms and leave those people to themselves – let them see if they can do better, she thinks petulantly. But she doesn't, because for everyone who complains and nags, there's another person who eagerly asks what they can do to contribute, shows her new plants with possible medicinal uses or a more efficient way of doing a menial task; or best of all someone who looks up at her with hope in their eyes. And most of all, there's Bellamy, standing behind her quietly and seriously when she outlines the day's tasks as if daring anyone to protest, or striding up with a threatening look on his face whenever someone approaches her looking anything less than friendly.

And on the long trek to the sea, he is almost always by her side, a reassuring presence that sometimes helps to lift the dark cloud hanging over her, made up of the image of her mother crying and memories of Finn – not the one they left behind, but the one from her first days on earth, the spacewalker who could draw a smile from her even as he annoyed her, who was carefree and optimistic and sympathetic. That Finn is gone, he died on that trip to the grounder camp with Murphy, and in his place is someone that Clarke can hardly bear to look at. But it doesn't do to dwell on that, she has to look forward, if only for her people. And with every step that leads her further away from Camp Jaha and closer to the ocean that they've all dreamed about so often, that gets just a little bit easier. Her conversations with Bellamy and whoever snatches up the place at her other side get just a little longer, and she finds herself smiling again from time to time.

They set out from Camp Jaha as co-leaders, but by the time the ocean comes into view over the crest of a hill, they've become friends. They certainly don't look much like leaders as they run across the sand and into the rather nippy water with their shoes and clothes still on, overcome with awe. Their dignity is restored eventually after that display of childish excitement, but the sea seems to have washed off what little distance there still was between them.

 


	4. We Will Call This Place Our Home

After scouting the area for the best possible spots for their settlement and debating the issue for hours, they start building their new home on a clearing about half a mile inland from the beach, protected all around by dense forest and with a creek running through it that springs up nearby so they have a fresh water source within their village. They adopt an informal council, consisting of Jasper and Monty, Miller, Monroe and a friend of hers who was almost finished with her engineering training on the Ark, as well as Octavia and Lincoln, when he's well enough.

Even after surviving the physical withdrawal from whatever drugs the Mountain Men injected him with, the grounder is still far from healthy. It was a great risk taking him, but it was Octavia's condition for coming, and without Octavia, Bellamy wouldn't have come either. Besides, they need Lincoln to give them directions and introduce them to the Luna People, and Clarke hopes he'll recover enough to be a valuable resource someday. He's already done enough for them that Clarke wouldn't have wanted to leave him behind at the mercy of the Arkians, many of whom still resent the grounders. But she also remembered encountering Reapers in the tunnels around Mount Weather, their inhuman growls and bared teeth, so she took one of the anti-reaper-instruments they stole from Mount Weather, just in case. She hopes she'll never have to use it on Lincoln, but she can't take the risk, no matter how angry Octavia was about the precaution.

But Lincoln's condition remains stable and their rudimentary camp grows around them – a perimeter fence, a wooden communal building with a fireplace for everyone to heat up around, tents that are gradually replaced with more sophisticated dwellings. Lincoln has told them how his own tribe live in pit houses, digging into the earth to save building material and use the earth's insulation against the cold, and they adopt the strategy to build huts that can sleep up to ten people comfortably. The plan is to squeeze into fewer buildings at first, just to make it through the first winter, and to build smaller, more private houses in the spring. They can't expend all of their manpower on building because they need to hunt and gather food to have some provisions before the snow drives the animals into hiding and kills most of the edible plants.

They're racing against time, but for now at least they aren't losing yet – by the time the first snow falls, they have enough huts to provide shelter for everyone, if not exactly comfort, and they're only hungry every other day, and only because Clarke and Bellamy get a little overzealous in rationing the food because they don't know just how long the winter will be. But people are too tired from the hard work to protest against that decision, and peace settles over the budding village.

That doesn't mean they're fine, however. Sometimes Clarke looks at the newer members of their group, friends and parents of the 100 who came down on the Ark and who have seen and done none of the things they have. She envies them their innocence, wonders how long it will last. On days when she has spent a lot of time thinking about that, the dreams are particularly vivid – of dead little girls and ashes around the dropship and grounders hung up by their ankles at Mount Weather and a lost boy holding an automatic rifle. Her solution is to sleep as little as possible and work so much during the day that she basically blacks out with exhaustion the moment her head hits the ground.

She knows it's not exactly healthy, but it's still better than waking up screaming from a nightmare, drenched in her own sweat and tears. The less she sleeps, the less she can dream. She remembers her mother's words the day they sent her to earth: “Your instincts will tell you to take care of everybody else first, just like your father.” It turns out her mother was right – Clarke does have a tendency to put the camp's needs first and forget about herself. She keeps skipping meals or giving away her rations to others who look hungrier, colder, weaker.

Luckily, someone else is there to take care of her while she takes care of everyone, and that someone, to her surprise, is Bellamy. Not that she should be surprised. After all, that was the plan all along – for him to have her back. But she thought that would be limited to things like making the big decisions and keeping everyone alive and in line, to everything that takes place in public. She didn't think he'd still be there after everyone has gone to sleep, that he'd come over to where she's sitting by the fire going over her mental list for the next day and ask her if she's eaten enough, if she's too cold or too tired and he should take over while his eyes ask the questions he can't say out loud: _How are you? Are you as scared as I am?_ She won't tell him that she is, but it's enough to know that someone wonders about these things; about her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, my end notes from Chapter 1 keeps popping up in different chapters. If anyone has any idea how to stop this, please tell me.   
> I will now start publishing the companion piece from Bellamy's point of view, since the damned notes from Chapter 1 have been promising it so insistently.


	5. Give what I got

It's during the harsh winter months that the gifts start: Over the first weeks of cold, Clarke receives a table and stool for her 'planning corner', a fur vest and a new knife with a beautiful carved handle. She loves them all, but she finds it sometimes hard to express her appreciation. And Bellamy's not exactly helpful, hiding the kindness of his actions under bluster and crude jokes and too many mocking exclamations of “Princess”, as if daring her to even try and thank him. After he's put the pieces of makeshift furniture in front of her, he goes so far as to bow exaggeratedly just to annoy her, and she retaliates by kissing him on the cheek and causing him to blush in front of everyone before prancing off.

But no matter how much Clarke might downplay their impact, she cherishes his presents. She still thinks of him every time she rifles through her med kit, knowing he put it together for her, or at least helped her mother put it together. She's received gifts before, of course – she was one of the 'privileged' after all, as Bellamy used to remind her – from her parents, from Wells, from friends of the family. Not to mention Finn's little two-headed deer, which seemed to mean so much at the time and then turned out to be such a meaningless, second-hand gesture.

Bellamy's gifts are different in the most perfect way. They are occasionally beautiful, but most importantly they are sensible and useful, because he has clearly understood that she will always value the practical over the ornamental. And, as if by magic, they always arrive at the exact moment she needs them. Of course, he knows what she's dealing with at any given time, seeing as they meet up every evening to go over their day together and plan their projects for the next, but these are things she never asked for: The table and stool appear two days after he notices her stretching to get rid of the pain in her back from crouching over her map and tattered notebook by the fire, and he gives her the fur vest just as winter really hits and a new knife when hers gets rusted and blunt (although that last one is also his way of apologising for his role in one of their uglier fights).

Inevitably, she starts to feel bad because she's never given him anything, because she never even finds the time to make gifts. Not to mention she's severely lacking in talent for anything along the lines of carpentry, needlework, toolmaking and the like. Clearly, she's not a very crafty person.

It's not like she's never _done_ anything nice for him: When he pulled a muscle during a hunting expedition, she concocted a herbal muscle relaxant against the pain. When he got sick so abruptly that he collapsed by the fireplace, she spent a day and a night by his side, throwing every bit of medical knowledge of the Ark and the earth at him and even, when he thrashed around in feverish nightmares, singing to him until he calmed down again and until she herself didn't feel quite so terrified that she'd lose him (not that she'd admit to that if her life depended on it). And once, when Octavia accompanied Lincoln on a long trip to his own tribe to try and reconcile with them, she drew him a portrait of his sister with her last pencil. He did like those things, she's sure, because he responded with some very insincere grumbling.

Still, on a day-to-day basis, Clarke thinks she does very little to repay his generosity. She makes sure he's well-fed and healthy and rests enough, sure, but she makes sure of that for everyone because it is after all her job, the reason why she doesn't have to chop wood and lug it around all day and patrol the perimeter fence all night. She has tried to sign herself up for those shifts at first, only to find him cancelling her name out of every single roster. They've argued about it, of course, a screaming match in the half-finished common hall, but he won this round by saying that they need their medic well-rested and easy to find at all times in case of an emergency, and he did have a point there. (Besides, he gets absolutely intolerable whenever she does something he has tried to stop her from because he thinks it's too dangerous; stomping around camp and sulking and yelling at people for days until he is sure that the imaginary danger has passed.)

It is Octavia who finally helps her to stop feeling guilty. When she admires the fur vest and Clarke says that she doesn't think she deserves it, that she wishes he wouldn't go to such trouble for her when she has never given him anything, Octavia just looks at her pensively.

“But you do give him something, don't you see? You respect him and trust him and tell him how valuable he is to all of us, and that's worth at least a fur vest. In fact,” she grins while Clarke is still busy taking in her words, “I think you might try and get a hat and some gloves out of it as well. You deserve it just for putting up with his foul temper.”

Octavia winks at her and jogs off to go hunting with Lincoln before Clarke can ask her to elaborate on that theory. But just in case Octavia is right, Clarke makes it a point that same evening to tell Bellamy that the new hunters he has been training are getting really good, and everyone is thankful because they haven't gone hungry in weeks. His pleased little smile in return lights up the room, and she wonders if that's what he sees on her face whenever he gives her something.

 


	6. There may be trouble ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ... but while there's moonshine and music and love and romance, let's face the music and dance.

Spring comes, and with it a welcome respite from the biting cold and an even more welcome addition to their group: Raven has finally managed to convince the Ark council to let her move to the new camp, arguing that whatever technical problems they have at Camp Jaha, there are still two other mechanics, who don't specialize in zero-g and are therefore better suited to their needs on the ground anyway. And with her leg slowly getting better, she can handle the trip, especially since Wick has come with her, staggering under the weight of a gigantic backpack.

When Raven and Wick have settled in at the corner hastily prepared for them at the meeting hall, they are joined by everyone who wants to greet them – Clarke and Bellamy, Monty, Jasper, Miller, Octavia and Lincoln. When everyone is equipped with a big cup of moonshine, Raven tells them that she wanted to come the moment she first stubbed a toe on her numb foot and felt the pain, but the council didn't let her. It took her two months of pleading, yelling, and resorting to strike and threats of sabotage to convince them otherwise.

“Abby must have thought I'd get over it eventually, but in the end she gave in and told the council that I was to be sent to your camp, as 'development assistance.'”

Bellamy snorts derisively. “We made it through the winter without any assistance, we sure as hell don't need it now.”

“Not that we're not happy you're here!” Clarke interjects and elbows him sharply in the ribs, but Raven looks amused rather than offended.

“I think Abby kept underestimating my loyalty to you. In the end I told her: Once you're on Team Clarke, you never go back.”

Raven looks at her and smiles, and Clarke feels a big part of her guilt lift off her heart, like a heavy boulder tumbling off the side of a mountain. When they left Camp Jaha, Raven was still refusing to speak to her, blaming her for Finn's death and feeling betrayed because Clarke didn't use Raven's knife to kill the grounder commander. This, Clarke knows, is Raven's way of telling her that she is forgiven.

“Hear hear!” Bellamy exclaims and raises his wooden cup to a toast: “To the new members of Team Clarke!”

Everyone laughs and raises their cups as well, and Clarke can feel her cheeks burning in embarrassment. Thankfully, Raven breezes past the moment with a mischievous smile.

“And as revenge for keeping me there so long, I took their best engineer.”

Raven squeezes Wick's knee and receives a gentle nudge with his shoulder in return, accompanied by a smile so warm Clarke thinks she can feel it all the way over where she's sitting, making her feel like she's intruding on something. At the same time, she notices a volley of meaningful glances being thrown around the room – Jasper and Monty exchange one that says 'Would you look at that', Raven flashes Clarke a smile that beams 'I'm trying to be happy' and Clarke wants to turn to Bellamy and give him her well-practiced 'I told you so'-look, but is beaten to it by Octavia.

“Before I forget, I brought gifts,” Raven exclaims and nudges Wick, who was apparently told to come prepared because he pulls a bag out from under his bench and starts handing out gadgets.

Monty and Jasper are immediately on their feet as they examine the rich bounty, marvelling at the clearly self-made creations with exclamations of awe. Bellamy spots and immediately commandeers a set of walkie-talkies, and Clarke claims one of the solar-powered lamps for her practice. As the excitement gradually dies down, Raven reaches once more into the almost-empty backpack, pulling out an oddly-shaped metal rectangle with a flat cylindrical piece attached to each side. No one but Clarke even notices at first – Monty and Jasper are already busy tinkering with Raven's gifts, Bellamy and Octavia are goofing around with the walkie-talkies and Lincoln is watching Octavia, whose smile, as always, seems to light up the room. Clarke is suddenly struck by how much she loves these people, who have become not just friends but family, a source of comfort and strength that helped to whittle the memory of Finn down from a crushing weight to a small splinter in her side, a constant but bearable ache.

Thankfully, Clarke is torn from the melancholy turn her thoughts have taken by a strange, swelling noise, one it takes her a moment to identify.

“Music...” she breathes out as she can make out distinct sounds – guitars, drums, singing. She can't remember the last time she heard music, and so she just lets it wash over her for a few moments. The music player Raven has built out of what looks like an old tablet, portable speakers and a solar-powered battery pack is such a clear sign of how far they've come: After months of barely scraping by, they can now afford to spend time, energy and resources on something that exceeds the bare necessities, whose function lies not in keeping them alive but purely in bringing them joy.

The others have noticed Raven's last gift too, clearly her masterpiece, and are reacting with renewed excitement. Octavia is on her feet and dancing in a matter of heartbeats, joined by Wick, Monty and Jasper and, more reluctantly, by her brother and Lincoln. Clarke doesn't even need to be asked to join the throng.

The next hour is a blur of music and dancing and the smiling faces of her favourite people around her, and for the first time in a very long time, Clarke feels genuinely happy, lighthearted and carefree and like everything is going to be okay. She eventually figures out the last time she felt like this: waking up next to Finn in a bunker bathed in candlelight. But for the first time since his death, the memory doesn't hurt. Instead, Clarke lets herself be drawn into some kind of huddle, one arm on Monty's shoulder, the other on Octavia's as they form a circle to jump in place to some ridiculous party song that mainly urges its audience to jump a lot. So she does, collapsing into a sweaty, giggling heap with the others when the song ends.

To give them a breather, Raven switches to a slower song, and Wick pulls her to her feet and against his chest to dance. Clarke expects the mechanic to bristle at the romantic gesture and is astonished when she doesn't, only links her arms around his neck and leans into him with a broad smile. Looking around, Clarke realises the other couples – Octavia and Lincoln, Miller and Monty – have found themselves as well, making things kind of awkward for the only two people left standing alone – her and Bellamy. Jasper has disappeared, presumably to either get more moonshine or his girlfriend Maya, whom they've taken in after she helped the 47 escape from Mount Weather.

Bellamy looks as lost as she does, but the music is beautiful and Clarke isn't ready to stop being happy and return to being responsible, so she tells herself 'what the hell', walks over to him and asks him to dance with an exaggerated flourish, just to let him know this is all in good fun and doesn't mean anything at all. He takes her up on her offer with a broad grin, and for the first few songs, they goof around, spinning each other across the room and striking overly dramatic poses.

But at some point, Clarke nonetheless finds herself snuggled against her co-leader with her arms around his neck, his hands on her waist, and there's nothing funny at all about how good it feels. Looking at the ridiculously smitten couples around them, she wonders if she's just getting carried away by the general atmosphere and that almost-too-romantic song, as if being in love was an airborne disease. But then her eyes find Bellamy's and her heart skips a beat or two. He's no longer grinning but looking down at her in that particular way he has, soft and intense at the same time, as if he's studying a particularly fascinating creature and wondering how best to protect it. It's unsettling and reassuring at the same time, and she wonders if all of her friends look at her with the same mixture of tenderness and admiration, or if that expression is unique to him.

They're not even really dancing anymore, she notices eventually, just swaying slightly in place. Clarke is pretty sure they look like idiots, standing there almost immobile, pressed together as they stare in each other's eyes. Not that it matters what they look like – everyone around is too engrossed in their significant others to spare them so much as a glance. Time seems to slow down enough to allow for random observations, like the fact that she keeps forgetting how much taller he is than her, or that it would be an interesting challenge to try and capture the exact colour of his eyes in painting, the way they seem to light up when he smiles. Blood is rushing through her ears, almost drowning out the music, and where her chest is pressed against his she can feel that his heart is racing just like hers.

The unsettled-yet-intrigued feeling that only he manages to evoke in her intensifies, and Clarke finds herself torn between the urge to run and the desire to find out if it's possible to get even closer to him. 'Fight or Flight', she suddenly remembers from a psychology text – he is actually appealing to one the most basic instincts within her. But that instinct applies to danger, and she couldn't be safer right now. So she stretches forward and up towards him and realises he's doing the same thing, diminishing the distance between them until she can feel the puff of air against her cheek when he breathes out her name. Every nerve in her body is yearning for something she didn't even know she wanted until now, and she is so close to getting it when someone barrels into her and sends her stumbling to the side and out of Bellamy's grip. 

Clarke can hear him cursing at her unknown assailant even as she's still too dazed to catch up with what's going on, but then a swarm of people floods the hall and the guy who crashed into her uses the distraction to get away. Apparently, Jasper let it slip that there's moonshine and dancing at the meeting hall, and now half the camp has come to take part in the impromptu celebrations. As the music switches abruptly from soft and slow to a fast, raucous number and people are starting to jump and sway all around them, Bellamy and Clarke are both frozen in place, staring at each other. He looks like he's been hit with a bolt of lightning, and Clarke has a feeling she looks much the same as the realization sinks in: She was about to kiss Bellamy.

And then _his_ flight-instinct seems to kick in and he turns and strides out of the hall, grabbing a cup of moonshine out of a dancing teen's hand and downing it on the way through the open door.

_It doesn't mean anything,_ Clarke tells herself firmly, taking a long draft from a nearby cup of moonshine with trembling hands, but she's not entirely sure what she's referring to – the fact that they almost kissed or the fact that it caused him to flee the scene at the first possible opportunity.

Later, when Bellamy reappears, staggering slightly from the moonshine and latching himself directly onto a long-limbed redhead only to disappear with her five minutes later, she repeats the words, all the way to her hut and through a restless night: _It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything...._

She wakes up the next morning with a hangover, a terrible mood and the strong urge to shout at Bellamy Blake for something; anything. But then she steps out of her hut and looks around at the camp, at the people relying on her and Bellamy to make good, levelheaded decisions, and she reminds herself once more: _It didn't mean anything_. They may have gotten a little carried away under the influence of moonshine and romantic songs (she'll have to talk to Raven about making a less dangerous playlist), but today, they'll be back to business as usual, to complementing and supporting each other as leaders and friends and nothing else. And if business as usual for him means leggy redheads, then that doesn't concern her.

The thought stings just a little, but Clarke blames it on her headache and goes to ask Lincoln about the grounders' hangover cure.

 

A/N:

I realise now that I may have made the time frame a little too tight and put events like this chapter too closely after the Season 2 midseason-finale. Since I have now decided to incorporate Finn's death (which, you may have noticed, is treated rather vaguely in the first chapters), I should probably give Clarke and Raven more time to grieve. But when I started out, I wanted to have the story end with Clarke's birthday, which should have happened on the show by now, and which would have left about a year for the story to unfold. After Finn's death, I think that timeframe is too optimistic, but I'll stick with it now. It's not like the show is moving particularly slowly.

Chapter title and description (slightly abridged) are from Nat King Cole's 'Let's face the music and dance'.

 

 


	7. Make passionate sense

The combined genius of Monty, Raven and Wick certainly makes life at camp easier, the three of them constantly tinkering with something or other, but spring is nonetheless exhausting, at least for Clarke: Several bad bouts of the flu, a brutal mass food-poisoning due to incorrectly preserved meat, a fatal hunting accident and an unplanned pregnancy have everyone in camp freaked out, and Clarke doesn't have much time to enjoy the wonders of the season because she rarely makes it out of the med bay.

She hasn't even realized how tense and overworked she is until Bellamy comes by for the sole reason of presenting her proudly with a basket of small red berries – strawberries if she remembers her Earth Skills correctly. She hasn't seen much of him lately, since the night of Raven's arrival at camp, to be precise. And while she hasn't exactly avoided him on purpose, she sometimes wonders if he has – only to chide herself for being so paranoid. Why would he avoid her? (Because you almost kissed, a thin voice in her head whispers, but she makes sure to shut it up.) It can't be because of that girl he hooked up with later that same night – she saw that same girl together and clearly getting serious with someone else a few weeks later, sparing Bellamy barely more than a few words. Not that she should even concern herself with the state of her co-leader's love-life, Clarke admonishes herself (regularly).

Nonetheless, she's happy that he's seeking her out without the pretext of some kind of camp emergency, and there's a slight flutter in her stomach when he suddenly appears before her, hiding his gift under a batch of seaweed and smiling as he presents his find. Eager and boyish, the expression makes him look young and vulnerable in a way she hardly ever sees, and it completely destroys her defenses. That must be the reason for what happens next, she tells herself.

Because as soon as Clarke finds out just how delicious strawberries are, she realises she'll never be able to eat them again without blushing to the roots of her hair. He feeds her the damn things because her hands are covered in the blood of her last patient and of course he can't wait for her to clean up. So he lifts the ripe red fruit to her lips and lets it hover, teasingly, before she catches it with her teeth and bites down. And then she may have blacked out for a moment because it tastes so _good_. She hasn't had fresh fruit for months, the last of their shrivelled apples and dried berries having gone moldy early in the spring, and she's not prepared for the explosion of taste.

She closes her eyes as the sweet, tangy juice floods her taste buds, throws back her head, and moans. In retrospect, she realises how it must look to him, but damn it, she should be able to express her enjoyment any way she wants to. To his credit, he doesn't make fun of her. In fact, when she opens her eyes again, he looks like he's quite unable to say anything at all, his hand frozen in the air between them with another strawberry between his fingertips, a muscle twitching in his jaw, his eyes dark with something she finds shockingly easy to identify because she's seen it there before and remembers the way it seemed to burn through her. It has been there more and more often lately, in the most unexpected situations, and it never fails to cause an expectant shiver to shoot down her spine and an ache to settle in her stomach, both of which are back now.

And suddenly, she wants to find out if there's any way of chasing off that delicious ache – if she even wants to chase it off at all. So she takes a small step forward and opens her mouth, her eyes never leaving his. Understanding the invitation, he pops the fruit into her mouth, and when he lowers his hand, she can see it shaking.

Clarke makes decisions about the lives of 65 people on a daily basis, but she has never felt this powerful. This time, she leaves her eyes open when she bites down on the soft fruit, holding his gaze. She doesn't moan, thank God, but she can't keep a hum of contentment from escaping once she's swallowed.

Bellamy looks as if he's about to explode, to her gleeful satisfaction.

Then his hand is on the small of her back and pulling her forward abruptly and he's kissing her, hard.

It is everything she has imagined during lonely nights and so much more. For every expectation she finds met there is something else that surprises her. His hair tickling her cheek is soft, and, surprisingly, smells of fresh herbs – mint and verveine, perhaps? - rather than just smoke and sweat and dirt, the smells of living on earth. His chest is hard, muscles tense as he holds on to her, but the skin she can feel through a ripped seam on his shirt is soft and smooth. And for all the hunger in his his kiss, his hands are gentle and careful, holding her in a way that allows her to step back at any moment, to stop this if she doesn't want it.

Not that she has any intention of stopping, she thinks as his lips travel from her mouth to the edge of her jaw and close hotly over her pulse. It's like the moment she first bit into that strawberry all over again, a sensation so intense it is almost overwhelming, and she bites her lip to keep from moaning out loud. If _almost_ kissing him was already enough to seriously mess with her head, this might just be more than she can handle. Which is ridiculous, because not to sound conceited, but Clarke Griffin has handled a lot of things at her young age, and Bellamy Blake of all people should not be the one to make her lose control.

But his hands are always exactly where she wants them to be the most, his lips teasing and coaxing and giving and taking, and maybe it's just been too long, but she's ready to take off all her clothes and find out what else those capable hands and lips are capable of doing right here in the med bay in the middle of the day...

And then she is glad she doesn't get to realize that plan because the door bangs open behind her.

“Clarke... Oh.” There's a moment of silence, then a drawn-out, understanding “Ooohhh....”

She turns around to see the source of the interruption, not sure if she wants to rip their head off or thank them for stopping her before she could throw all caution to the wind. Jasper is standing there, staring at them open-mouthed. Then he blushes, murmurs an apology and backs out of the hut – only to pop his head back in again.

“What month is it?”

Clarke automatically replies “June”, causing Jasper to whoop and pump his fist in the air. 

“I'm rich!”

“Jasper, out!” roars Bellamy, and it is now that things catch up to Clarke. What they just did. What she was thinking about doing. What Jasper witnessed. What he might tell others...

Without as much as a word, she is out of the med bay and running after Jasper, grabbing his arm when she reaches him and pulling him behind a nearby hut.

“You cannot tell anyone what you just saw!”

When he doesn't immediately reply, she practically slams him into the back wall of the hut.

“Do you understand? Not a word to anyone.”

“Relax, Clarke, what's so bad about people knowing? You're both adults, you know.”

That is true, Clarke thinks, but still the idea of everyone knowing what just... what they... She hasn't even had a chance to process it herself, for heaven's sake.

“Besides, half the camp already thinks you're secretly banging. But don't worry, I'll keep your secret.”

With that, he gently frees himself from her grasp and strolls back to the square.

“They what?” By the time Clarke croaks out the question, he has already disappeared from sight, and Bellamy is standing before her between the two huts. From the look on his face, he's heard most of their short conversation, witnessed her attempt at intimidating Jasper. But he doesn't get around to saying anything, because this time, it is her who flees, weaving through the huts and out the gate until she can no longer hear him calling after her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... after people were upset with Bellamy's behaviour in the last chapter, I hope this one has made it clearer that they're both just really in over their heads.  
> Chapter title is from a line from Jeffrey McDaniel's poem The Jerk: 'I want to rip off your logic and make passionate sense to you.'  
> This scene is the first to pop up in both stories in this series, with Clarke and Bellamy's perspectives converging.


	8. I can't help but feel like this is good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is almost completely Clarke's introspection, but it finally delivers the promised horse.  
> A note on the timeline: Based on the weather and the fact that winter is still not coming, I figured the 100 landed some time in the summer - August, maybe. Any theories on that?

In her months leading a village, Clarke has faced problems she never knew could possibly exist, and she has somehow dealt with all of them. Now, for the first time in a long time, something has come up that she doesn't know how to deal with: She kissed her co-leader, and she liked it. That was not supposed to happen, so she doesn't have any contingency plan other than to ignore him. She knows it's cowardly, not to mention it severely constrains their ability to successfully run a camp, but she makes do by using Jasper and Octavia to send messages back and forth between them.

But Clarke isn't stupid, even if, as she has just found out, her brain has a tendency to shut down under certain conditions. She knows things can't go on like this forever. Not just because they are leading a people together, but because every time she spots Bellamy somewhere around camp, he seems to be looking at her with an expression that she can only describe as 'longing' and that makes her want to drop whatever she's holding and throw herself into his arms. Which would be selfish, and un-leaderly, so she doesn't. But the look makes her realize she owes it to him – not to mention Jasper and Octavia and the rest of the camp – to come to a solution.

In keeping with her analytic mind, Clarke starts by observing, although she guesses anyone watching her watching Bellamy might find less scientific terminology for what she's doing. Lurking in the shadows, she watches as he juggles guard shifts with hunting trips and the running of the camp, on his feet all day long. She watches him interact with the others, whose facial reactions to him range from respect to outright adoration when he offers words of encouragement and advice, occasionally admonishing someone for slacking off or settling a dispute.

It doesn't really help, because it doesn't tell her anything about Bellamy that she didn't know before. Things only fall into place when Clarke goes from observing him to observing herself. Now that she's cut back on interacting with him, she notices just how much she did it before, how much her day was structured around him – beginning the day with some hot herbal infusion in the grey morning light, finishing it together with a walk around the perimeter to recap and regroup. She misses it, misses bouncing ideas off him and being told with brutal honesty when he thinks they won't work out, misses the way he has of asking with only a glance if she's okay.

She's tempted to act like nothing out of the ordinary ever happened between them just to get her friend back, but going back to the way things were before seems unimaginable. Ever since that kiss when he brought her the strawberries, Clarke hasn't managed to shove his image back into the 'friend' folder the way she used to do when he made an occasional appearance in one of her more entertaining dreams. Half her 'observation sessions' get derailed because she sees him running a hand through his messy hair and wants to repeat the gesture herself, or she zooms in on his gesturing hands and smiling mouth, remembers their gentle pressure on her skin and wants them back there that very second.

She could of course tell herself it's only a matter of pent-up sexual needs – she is a healthy young woman, after all – that she can resolve just by slipping into his hut one of these nights. But the thought of stealing out the next morning to make room for the next girl is unbearable. Because the longer she observes herself, the more she notices how possessive of him she has become. How she thinks of him as hers in a way that makes her slit her eyes in annoyance when some girls bat their lashes at him, and that makes her heart constrict in fear every time he comes to her with an injury, no matter how small.

There is one other possible outcome, of course, one that she doesn't allow herself to dwell on too much because it makes her realize just how much she wants it. In a different life, on a not-so-lethal planet, there might be a chance that they could actually make something more out of this, something good and happy. But she's hoped for happy before, and Earth has taken it away. And even if it did work out, a part of her, the part Octavia calls a 'masochist with a martyr-complex', thinks that she wouldn't deserve it anyway.

And yet, no matter how long she mulls it over, her observation leads to one result, and one result only: Despite everything that happened since they landed, the things she did that made her think she'd never love anyone again, Clarke has somehow managed to fall in love with Bellamy Blake.

The morning after she's come to this conclusion, Clarke emerges from her hut to the sight of half the camp gathered before it, plus a smiling Bellamy and... a horse?

“Happy Earth anniversary, Princess.”

For a moment, she's too stunned to reply, standing there in awkward silence and wondering, irrationally, if she at least tried to get her hair into some semblance of order after walking outside. From somewhere to her left, she hears Jasper snigger and murmur “Happy Earthiversary”, but everyone else is silently watching her reaction.

Bellamy clears his throat and holds out his hand, offering her the rope attached to a kind of harness around the horse's neck.

“This is for you. For being our brave leader, and all.”

The pragmatic side of her thinks 'This will make diplomatic missions so much easier'. The side of her that has been enjoying her scientific observation project a little too much just drinks in the sight of him, smiling and shuffling his feet nervously. It's not the smile he usually has when something goes particularly well, open and joyous and capable of making her heart skip a beat, but a different kind, shy and hopeful at the same time. Taking stock of Bellamy's unusual body language, Clarke finally figures out that he's nervous, and maybe that means it's okay that she is, too.

That's when the dam finally breaks: This man has supported her and built a life with her, made her knees go weak and given her a goddamn horse. She owes it to him to overcome her fear and at least try.

So Clarke makes the few steps over to him, ignoring the outstretched hand holding the horse's reins, and kisses him, in full view of everyone. After a moment of shocked stupor, Bellamy's arms go around her, tight enough to lift her off her feet as he responds enthusiastically. Some of the people who came to marvel at the horse are starting to cheer, but Clarke is too happy to feel embarrassed about their very public display of affection. There's no going back from this now, and she wouldn't want to go back anyway. She has a feeling her future began with him, and that's how it will continue.

For years after that, Bellamy proudly tells everyone how he won Clarke over by giving her a horse, and Clarke doesn't correct him even though it leads him down a veritable rabbit hole of smug jokes about the princess and her pony. She's going to let him have this and keep it to herself that the horse was just the last straw, so to speak: She fell in love with him long before that, with his bright smile as much as his worried looks and soothing little touches and the fact that she feels invincible when he's by her side.

 

_And time will eventually knock on my door_   
_And tell me I'm not needed around anymore_   
_But he'll hold me so close at the end of the day_   
_When I'm quiet I can nearly hear him say_   
  
_Smile, the worst is yet to come_   
_We'll be lucky if we ever see the sun_   
_Got nowhere to turn, and we've got nothing but time_   
_But the future is forever, the future is forever, so smile, so smile, so smile_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally finished this story, yay! Apparently, all the misery on the show is a wonderful motivation for knocking out some happy endings for my unfinished stories.  
> Bonus feminist musings: I love the 100's depiction of women as leaders so much, and I love that the male characters have absolutely no problem supporting them (at least not because of their gender), and that Bellamy is growing into a character who supports people and cares about them rather than that whole alpha male-thing he had going at the start, and that this is portrayed as a positive development and not 'emasculation'. That's the kind of dynamic I wanted to write here, a reversal of the idea that 'behind every great man, there's a great woman'.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a companion piece to this that tells the story from Bellamy's point of view, but with some different scenes and a slightly different focus, so watch out for that.  
> The lyrics are from Mikky Ekko's 'Smile', which is my jam for this story.


End file.
